LANDI KOTAL: At least 15 suspected militants were killed and four soldiers injured in a clash in Khyber tribal region’s Tirah valley on Saturday.

According to a statement issued by the ISPR, the military’s public relations wing, about 35 armed men attacked an army post in Mastak area in the morning.

Troops deployed at the post surrounded the attackers. “In an intense gunbattle, 15 terrorists were killed” and the attack was repulsed, the ISPR said.

It said the attackers left the bodies of 10 of their companions which the army took into its custody, along with their weapons. The bodies were brought to the Levies centre at Shah Kas in Jamrud.

The four injured soldiers were taken to the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar.

It was the first ground battle in the area after last week’s intensive bombing of suspected sanctuaries of the banned Lashkar-i- Islam and Taliban in Kukikhel, Sipah, Akkakhel and Kamar Khel localities by military planes and helicopters.

Security officials said the indigenous Burraq drones were also used for the first time in precision air strikes against militant hideouts in Tirah after their exhibition during the March 23 military parade in Islamabad. 

Meanwhile, a Lashkar-i-Islam spokesman in a telephonic contact with reporters denied deaths of his group’s men and claimed that seven soldiers had been killed.

The claims made by both the military and militants could not be independently verified. 

A security post was set up after the fresh clash in Mastak, which was earlier deemed to be an LI stronghold.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2015

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